Visible light communication (VLC) technology has gained significant interest as light emitting diodes (LEDs) are now widely used for general illumination. VLC technology is able to communicate wirelessly by encoding data to visible light emitted by LEDs, and thus relies on the visible light wavelength band, in contrast to existing wire optical communication technology and infrared ray wireless communication technology. An attractive feature of VLC is the ability to incorporate the wireless communication function into the LEDs without affecting the LEDs' ability to perform its primary purpose, such as general illumination or light display purposes. This is because the LEDs can be modulated to switch on and off at ultra-high speeds (e.g., thousands of times per second) which are far beyond what the human eye is able to detect. Another major advantage is that VLC technology has a broad use band. It can be used without restriction unlike radio frequency (RF) communication where the available frequencies for usage are exhausting and regulated.
However, conventional VLC systems have a number of drawbacks, including low data transmission rate, inflexible display layout/format, and/or lacking in data transfer security.
A need therefore exists to provide a method, an apparatus and a system for VLC which seeks to overcome, or at least ameliorate, one or more of the above deficiencies of the conventional VLC systems. It is against this background that the present invention has been developed.